Sunday, January 15, 2006

Of Ideas, Humans and Bathtubs

I remember reading in a recent issue of Time or Scientific American (I forget which), that ideas come to people when they’re either in the bathtub or in the gym. I could not help but agree with this; Archimedes came to mind, exclaiming “Eureka!” on the streets in a state of embarrassing undress having discovered his principle while indulging in a bath. Umpteen other examples can be cited of people hitting upon a sudden stroke of genius either while bathing or while in the gym.As a matter of fact, I got the idea for this post while bathing!

I believe that this tendency of humans to think while in their baths shall be the solution to all of the third world’s problems. A country like India, stuck in a stagnant rut of corruption and poverty requires creative solutions to its day to day problems.Creative methods to make money. Creative policies.

So, the panacea to this problem would lie in building more bathtubs. It is my strong belief that funds that would otherwise be used to educate the illiterate by building schools be used to build public bath tubs. And public gyms. People on utilizing the same, shall, no doubt, be struck by at least one stroke of genius per head per day, thus alleviating the whole country from the aforementioned poverty.

Perhaps a considerable amount of the defense budget could be spent on building bathtubs for leaders so that they can come up with creative solutions for the Kashmir issue. And the music directors of these Hindi Movies sure need all the bathtubs that they can get.

On a different plane altogether, I believe this tendency of “good” ideas to materialize during a bath (or a workout) is merely a manifestation of Murphy’s law. What worse time to get an idea than when making a note of the same is next to impossible!